


Carry Your Lies

by abvj



Category: The Killing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:04:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abvj/pseuds/abvj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Linden is who she is and she's not sorry for it either. Set immediately after the season one finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry Your Lies

Somona lasts for two hours, and she only ever sees the airport. 

Rick shows up on time, all smiles and shuffled feet. He knows as soon as he looks at her, she can tell because his lips draw into a thin line, he shoves his hands in his pockets, weight resting on his heels. 

"Alright," he says, glancing down at his feet, at the floor, at her suitcases standing upright and proud next to her feet. Anywhere but her. "Alright then." 

Linden thought like a cop long before she carried the badge and picked up the gun, the steel heavy yet comfortable between her fingers. She reads people. Can tell you everything about a person by one look, one miniscule glance, or a single exchange of words. The look on Rick's face and the weight of the sigh that leaves his mouth in a whoosh says he's known it all along. It tells her that he was hanging on as tightly as he could with his fingers pearl white until she sidestepped around him and fell back into old patterns. 

He's always known her better than she gave him credit for. 

 

 

 

She doesn't bother with _I'm sorry_. 

The raincoat around her shoulders is heavy, weighing her down. Linden squints against the sun streaming in through windows as she watches Rick walk away. 

 

 

 

Regi’s waiting at the airport. Her smile is kind and wide. Linden stops a few feet away, shrugs her shoulders as if to say _I am what I am_. Regi doesn’t need the explanation, she already knows, but still she laughs. The sound is airy and light. It feels like home. 

“I never thought you’d even make it on the plane,” she tells Linden. Jack huffs beside her, his phone vibrating in his hand. Linden had vowed earlier _no more_ and meant it. She knows he doesn’t believe her, knows he has no reason to believe her, but it’s true. 

“People always have a habit of underestimating me,” Linden says. She tosses her suitcase in the back seat, shuffles Jack into the car. 

On the radio, the broadcaster talks about Councilman Richmond like he’s the devil incarnate, praising his death, damning him to hell with his self righteous anger. Linden switches it off with a neat flick of her wrist. 

Outside the rain hits the windshield in a steady rhythm, the staccato sounds filling the silent car. 

Linden welcomes the consistency. 

 

 

 

At the station, Holder's face goes from surprise to shock to ashen in one second flat. He straightens at the sight of her, slides his feet off of her old desk and plants them flat on the ground, rubs a hand over his stubble-covered jaw. He's still wearing that hoodie, the cuffs fraying at the edges. After a moment he stands, starts to walk towards her before halting completely after one or two steps. 

"'Ya miss me that much, Linden?" 

Rosie's face is still covering the black board. Linden doesn't look at it. Doesn't answer Holder either. There's a commotion in the hallway, sirens on the streets outside. The hustle and bustle around her calms her nerves, puts her at ease. She’s not quite sure how she ever thought she’d survive somewhere else. 

"Why'd you come back?" He asks after a minute, after the silence stretches before them and wears them down. He rests his weight on his toes, shoves his hands deep into his pockets. 

She looks at him then, her jaw set and square. "You know why,” is all she says, and the lie settles between them deftly. 

"He's the guiltiest mother fucker I've ever seen," he tells her after a while, his version of an explanation, of an apology. "Doesn't matter now," he pauses, reaches for a newspaper and shoves it in her hands. "He's already been tried, convicted, and executed by judge, jury, and press. Son of a bitch had it comin’. You and I both know that." 

Linden tucks the paper under her arm, already knows the story by heart. "You do realize that if you're wrong then an innocent man is dead and another will spend the rest of his life in prison." 

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Linden,” he starts, stops, looks at her head on. “I’m not wrong. Not about this.” 

"You sure?"

Holder doesn't hesitate. "Yes." 

It shouldn't be enough for her, but it is. 

 

 

 

Linden met Richmond on a day like this – cloudy, overcast, the rain dripping against the windows in a steady cadence. His hand had slid into hers, his smile anything but genuine, and she’d felt something settle deftly in the pit of her stomach, felt something dangerous travel down her spine and settle at the base. 

She had known then. 

It’s easier in the beginning, you know. Fresh off the academy, eyes wide and future blindingly bright as it stretches before you. In the beginning things are easy, simple. You see the world as split into two halves: black and white. You don’t know any better then. You know nothing of that morally ambiguous gray area that is so vast and so deep that it can swallow you whole, leave you drowning on dry land. In the beginning that line between right and wrong is bold, unmistakable. In the beginning, you don’t toe it, you don’t even acknowledge it – you are so far on the other side, on what is perceived to be the _right_ side that it doesn’t even register. 

It’s only with years and experience that it becomes blurred, barely noticeable. With years and experience you learn how to walk that thin line the best you can, stepping over it when the situation warrants it, respecting it when it doesn’t. 

Linden never asks Holder why he does it. She simply doesn’t need to. 

There is a fact buried behind the sarcasm and banter and misplaced loyalties: they are more alike than they are different. She spends a copious amount of time trying to figuring out who she hates more for it – him or herself. 

Some days the truth is easier to discern than others. 

 

 

 

(Most days she ignores the fact that she will never be able to outrun that specific truth. 

Linden is who she is and she’s not sorry for it either.) 

 

 

 

On a Tuesday, she reclaims her desk. Slides her gun back into her holster, fingers her badge with appreciation and feels truly at peace. 

Holder saunters in too late, two coffees in hand. He sets one down on her desk, waits for a _thank-you_ she doesn’t bother to offer. 

Instead, he says, “Admit it. You missed my fine ass and first class humor. That’s why you came back, baby. I ain’t replaceable.” 

She doesn’t bother to look up when she says, “How could I not?” without any and all humor, sarcasm twisting around the consonants and vowels of her words. 

The smile twisting at the corner of her mouth is small, but genuine and in a minute the brass will call down – a jogger finds a body in the woods on the outskirts of the city. It’s messy, they say. 

Linden looks at Holder and Holder looks at Linden and she’s up before she can’t think, sliding into her rain coat. She is almost halfway out the door when she calls back to him, “Don’t bother grabbing your keys. You’re not driving.”

Laughing, he falls into step beside her. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Linden,” he mutters and it feels right, almost.


End file.
